


Duty First, Unto Death

by thelordofstarsanddreams



Category: An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir
Genre: A Reaper at the Gates, A Torch against the Night, AEITA, An Ember in the Ashes, Angst, Barebacking, Denial of Feelings, Duty, F/M, Falling In Love, Fuckbuddies, Idiots in Love, Longing, NSFW, POV Female Character, Post-ARATG, Rare Fandoms, Rare Pairings, Rough Sex, Sex, Slow Burn, Spoilers for Reaper, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-09 02:03:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15256980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelordofstarsanddreams/pseuds/thelordofstarsanddreams
Summary: The Blood Shrike never allowed him to kiss her. Not since that first and last time many months ago.Even if every part of her body still sang when she thought about the press of Harper's mouth against her own. It was too personal a gesture. It enticed feelings that she had been pushing down day after day. Ones she would not open herself to.There was no place for love in her life. Not anymore.That hadn't stopped her from taking him to bed.





	Duty First, Unto Death

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've recently finished the third book in the Ember in the Ashes quartet, and I am not in the slightest bit okay. However, I fell in love even more with Helene Aquilla, and I genuinely loved the slow burn dynamic she had with Harper in the past two books. And the end of Reaper? Broke my heart! So I couldn't help but write this little fic. Some angsty smut! Enjoy!

The Blood Shrike never allowed him to kiss her. Not since that first and last time many months ago. 

Even if every part of her body still sang when she thought about the press of Harper's mouth against her own. It was too personal a gesture. It enticed feelings that she had been pushing down day after day. Ones she would not open herself to.

There was no place for love in her life. Not anymore.

That hadn't stopped her from taking him to bed. 

It had been almost two months ago when they’d first taken one another after a raid against a group of the Commandant's men. They'd returned to their established hideout. Fuelled with adrenaline and seeking an outlet.

The Shrike had in her claimed quarters, bent over the desk, breeches shed to her knees and Harper's fingers twisted in her hair. 

It had been a release she'd desperately needed. It had been pleasure she didn't deserve. 

Afterwards he had been dismissed from her rooms, as if he had merely given a report on the movements of enemies and not claimed her with such force that she had lost herself to a violent peak of pleasure twice. 

It wouldn't happen again.

That's what she had silently promised herself when she'd spoken to Laia of Serra the next day. Quietly requesting a tonic to slow her moon cycle. To make sure nothing would come of such an occurrence. 

Laia hadn't asked questions, and had returned hours later with two bottles of liquid. One to take and one to keep. 

The Shrike swore she wouldn't need it.

She was wrong.

It had barely been a week later when she'd taken him again. 

It became a regular occurrence. Harper would take her and she would dismiss him when they were done. Eventually, the flicker of hurt began dull, they settled into a routine. The physical became a compromise. Something better than nothing at all. 

Livia had warned her. That playing such a game was a dangerous one. Laia too had voiced concern. Yet each time the Scholar woman made the tonic without question. 

It was how they had ended up here.

Avitas Harper's body beneath her own. Nothing more than the low light of a burning lantern illuminating them. 

They had lost men tonight. 

She had made a bad call sending out a scouting group into the nearby pass. A handful had returned from the ambush. 

It had been a harsh blow. Another mistake on her part.

Always so many mistakes. 

Harper's mouth eased her from the turmoil ridden trappings of her mind. 

Teeth grazed the swell of her breast in the same moment nails raked along the length of her spine. A tremble rattled through her. Fingers lacing through his hair, tugging, a silent command for more. 

The man never failed to obey. 

His mouth parted around her nipple, tongue hot and firm, urging her back to arch, a low groan building in her throat as his teeth nipped and tugged. 

The Shrike could feel him, heavy and hard against her leg. Letting that hunger bubble between them. His mouth was welcome anywhere, as were his hands.

As long as their lips never met. 

They had come close. More than once.

But she never allowed it to happen. 

Her hands drifted South, tracing the length of him with callused fingers. Circling the tip of his cock until that familiar grunt spilled from his parted lips, urging him to bite a little too hard against the flesh of her breast.

The pain was relished. 

Fingers wrapped around the length of him, shifting her hips and sliding him against her. Already wet and aching for more as she eased herself down onto the fullness of his cock.

Neither of them tried to quieten the approving groans which rattled from them like snarls from ravenous animals. 

Harper's hands gripped at her hips as she rocked them down into his. One hand gripped at his shoulder, muscular and firm, littered with scars. The other pressed to the stone wall behind his head, granting herself the leverage to work herself harder, faster. 

The Mask's lips traced along her shoulder, the dip of her neck, along her jaw, coupling it with small bites and the occasional flick of his tongue.

When his mouth settled nearer to her own, the Shrike's hand slid from his shoulder, along his neck, into his hair, forcibly tugging his head back. Leaning down, she pressed her mouth to the exposed hollow of his throat, stubble rough against her lips.

Hands cupped the firm curve of her backside, and the woman tensed her thighs on either side of him. Knowing every step in this dance of theirs. Within a heartbeat, she was on her back, Harper above her, an arm by her head as the other dragged her leg onto his shoulder. 

Part of her wished to complain, to protest having the control taken from her, but she couldn't deny the change in the angle. The depth which he pressed into her with a harsh snap of his hips. 

“Helene…”

It wasn’t the first time the man had forgotten himself and uttered her name during one of their tyrsts. It had happened often. When he was too lost to her and to his pleasure. One day, maybe it would hurt less to hear. 

That name didn’t belong to her anymore. 

Helene Aquilla was long dead. 

Lips parted, with every intention to reprimand him. Even buried inside her, she was still the Blood Shrike, was still his superior. Yet before a single word could be uttered, the callused tips of Harper’s fingers drifted between her legs, nestling against the bundle of nerves just above where they were joined. 

Words fell away into nothing, her head tipped back, as pleasure rushed through her, heat coiling in the pit of her stomach.

Just a little more. That was all she needed. 

A heavy knock sounded at her door.

“Blood Shrike, I have the reports you requested from the ambush,” Dex’s voice was like a falling axe, breaking the solitude of their being together. Curse him to every bleeding, burning pit of hell. Whether he was attending to his duty or not. 

Avitas had stilled above her, but hadn’t yet made to move, his fingers against her even in that moment as she dragged her eyes open to glare towards the door. 

“Report back later, Lieutenant,” The woman’s voice was sharper and more dismissive than she ever intended it to be. 

“You said it was urgent they-” 

“Later, Dex!”

A rumble rattled from the man above her. 

Harper was laughing, a smug smirk pasted on his lips. Helene wanted to hit him in that moment. A swift crack to that handsome jaw of his. 

As if sensing her growing irritation, those damned fingers of his circled against her again, forcing the Shrike to bite back a hiss of pleasure. Silent. She had to be silent. Dex was still shuffling outside the door, murmuring his understanding of orders in that familiar low tone. 

“Should I leave you to your duties, Shrike?”

“Worn out already, Harper?”

Another chuckle and the Shrike almost found herself smiling. It was too easy to let her guard down with him. To feel something without ever realising it. 

Lips grazed the corner of her mouth in a delicate brush sending her heart racing. 

A betrayal of her own body. 

Every part of her ached for that kiss. For the feel of his mouth. For the taste of him. 

Avitas’ eyes locked with her own for a brief moment, his chin dropping, lips tilting towards her own. 

The entire world seemed to pause. To shift. 

Then in the same breath, Helene turned her head away, the kiss lost to the skin of her cheek.

_Duty first, unto death._

“Finish the job, Harper. Or I’ll get someone who can,” The Shrike’s voice was like ice. Cold and unforgiving and she could feel the same warmth drain from the man above her. 

Maybe one day she would stop hurting him. Would stop chipping away at the already fractured pieces of his heart.

Maybe.

There were no playful jabs. No smile present any longer. 

But he took her.

With skilled hands, and forceful thrusts, working her until she shattered around him. Pleasured moans escaped her, bubbling past gritted teeth as her body twitched and arched into his. Nails raked along his back, gripping at the strong muscles, feeling the exact moment he tensed, spilling into her, face pressed into the crook of her neck. 

The room was silent, beyond their mingled panting breaths. 

Helene lost herself in that moment, she always did. Face tucked against his shoulder, the tips of her fingers tracing along his spine, his neck, into his hair, holding him there for as long as she could. Feeling something while she was able to, knowing soon she would sink back into that familiar isolation and loneliness. 

Stay.

The word pulsed through her mind. She wanted him to stay. To gather her into his arms and hold her in all the ways she had imagined being held when she was foolish and soft hearted. 

Instead, the Shrike pushed Harper from her, sitting up, bare feet sliding onto the cold, stone floor as she stood. With years at Blackcliff, she had never had much shame, it had been beaten from her. And given what they had done, it seemed pointless to conceal her body like some shy maiden. 

The cool evening air bit at her skin as she crossed the room, sliding on a discarded shirt and pouring herself a glass of water from the jug in the corner. It tasted stale, but complaining wasn’t a luxury they had. 

Behind her, the straw in the mattress rustled as Harper rose. Clothing scraped and hissed as he redressed. 

“Are we ever going to talk about this, Helene?”

There was something in Harper’s voice. A quiet fragility. Pain that couldn’t be healed by her song yet a part of her still yearned to sing for him. 

“There is nothing to discuss. And it’s Blood Shrike. I will not remind you again,” Turning, she found him closer than she was anticipating. Those dark eyes trained on her with that intensity that she remembered from the first day she had ever met him in that interrogation cell. 

“Hel-”

“Enough,” The Shrike snapped, turning away from him and draining the contents of her cup, slamming it a little too hard back down on the side table in the corner of the room, making to dress herself. Behind her Harper hesitated, sighing softly as he pulled on his scims, ready to leave.

“Permission to retire from duty for the night, Shrike.”

“Granted.”

And then he was gone. The latch of the door clicking shut behind him. Leaving her in silence. 

Love. There was no place in her life for love unless it was for her people. For the Empire.

Even if it took every last piece of her fractured, broken soul. 

The woman pulled on her armor, her scims, braided her hair, and let herself sink into the emptiness that lingered every time Harper left. The choking, heavy loneliness that suffocated her. 

But she was the Blood Shrike. And she would endure. As she always had.

_Duty first, unto death._

And death. Death would always be waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this mostly hungover and sleep deprived, so I do hope it carries. I know this fandom is very small and quiet on AO3 but hopefully whoever finds this fic enjoys it. Let me know if you do and thanks for reading!


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